


Red

by Fudgyokra



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Arguing, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Death, Drama, M/M, Moving On, Multi, One Shot, Past Relationship(s), Pre-Canon, Rebirth, Romance, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-29 20:15:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10861299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fudgyokra/pseuds/Fudgyokra
Summary: “Here’s the thing, babe,” Jack started, putting a hand on the doorknob, “everybody’s red on the inside. We’re all poor suckers trying to make a living, and some of us are gonna die doing it."





	Red

**Author's Note:**

> Moved this to my main pseud and made it a oneshot. I was just testing something, sorry!
> 
> Anyway, this is pre-canon up until the point where it becomes post-canon. Assume the normal plot of TFTBL continues where this fic leaves off.

Like many things in the world of Handsome Jack, it all began with a bang.

Ha, ha. He might have laughed at the double entendre, had he not suffered because of it. God damn life, and god damn fate.

“How can you do it?” Rhys asked. “Kill people in cold blood like that?”

Jack studied him for a second, as though unsure of whether or not his companion had meant to ask that question. To him, the answer seemed pretty obvious.

Rhys, wide-eyed and splattered in some poor sucker’s blood, finally drew his gaze from the body on the floor to his partner’s face. “All he did was sneak up on us.”

Chuckling, Jack pressed a kiss to his forehead. “That’s the point, sweetheart.”

“He didn’t have a gun,” Rhys protested, waving his hand as if that would physically remove Jack’s presence from the room. “He probably wasn’t even gonna fight us.”

“You worry too much,” Jack muttered. He toed the body over onto its back and began to rifle through the corpse’s pockets.

Rhys’s next breath was shaky. “You’re not going to _rob_ him, are you?”

“It ain’t like he’s gonna be needing money these days.”

“Jack, that—”

“Cupcake, leave the bloody stuff to daddy, alright? You just stand over there and look pretty.”

Rhys narrowed his eyes and set his jaw to the side but decidedly said nothing.

Jack could feel his judgement from across the room. After pilfering a wallet (containing a palfrey ten bucks and a condom) and a key, he stood from his crouch and grabbed his shotgun from where he’d leaned it against the wall.

They continued down the hall in silence, which was considerably unusual for either of them. When they came upon the room they had been searching for, Rhys finally had to say something. “Are you just gonna _leave_ him there? On the floor with his insides all…on the outside?”

“Yeah, babe,” Jack answered, unbothered. He backed against the wall and carefully peered around the corner; when he seemed satisfied that no one was waiting to ambush them, he waved Rhys over. “What is it with you? It’s like you’ve never seen a dead guy before.”

“I haven’t,” Rhys said, a frown curling his lips.

Jack paused. “Huh?” He turned, brows furrowed and one corner of his mouth lifted in disbelief to expose a deadly-sharp canine tooth.

“I’ve never seen a body up _close_.” Rhys was beginning to sound exasperated. “Why are you acting like that’s such a _normal_ thing for you?”

In lieu of an answer, Jack simply returned his focus to the objective. “Come on, we’re almost there,” he commanded in a stony voice.

“How often do you kill people?” Rhys pressed, his own voice turning soft. Jack squeezed his eyes shut for a second and breathed a heavy sigh. He lifted the muzzle of his gun to aim at the security camera hanging above the door they needed to get through and shot once, creating an explosion of sound that had Rhys’s organic arm flying out to grip the back of Jack’s shirt. “ _God,_ ” he hissed, “couldn’t you have warned me first?”

“Get used to it,” Jack snapped, taking long strides through the hall. His shoes squeaked on the linoleum, and that was the only sound around them until he withdrew the key he’d snagged and unlocked the door.

It opened on its own, and the gunshots this time were not from Jack’s end.

“Duck!” he ordered, unnecessarily. Rhys was already way ahead of him and had thrown himself to the floor some feet away. Jack, annoyed, used the muzzle of his gun to jab their attacker hard in the ribs. He went down with a gross hacking noise, and Jack, pleased, lifted his shoe to the man’s neck. “Where is she?”

“I swear, I don’t know,” the stranger croaked, panicked and gripping fiercely at the leg of Jack’s pants. “Please don’t kill me. I was just taking orders, man. _Please._ ”

Rhys got to his feet and ran a hand through his hair. “Jack, don’t,” he said flatly, waving the pistol he’d yet to use in the direction of the open door ahead of them. “Let’s just go talk to her.”

“Talk?” Jack asked with a snort. “I’m here to kick her ass.”

“We discussed this,” Rhys said quietly. He looked into the eyes of the man on the floor, wild and alight with fear, and then back at Jack with pursed lips. “You told me you were going to try and talk things out.”

Jack curled his lips into a snarl but grudgingly stepped back from the terrified man. “Fine,” he said, “but if she even looks at me wrong, so help me, I will—”

“Yeah, I got it,” Rhys interrupted, stepping over the toppled man and into the room they had come here to find. Fuming, Jack followed, but not before landing a sharp kick to the stranger’s side and drawing a crushed groan out of him.

“Mother?” It was Rhys’s voice that travelled uncertainly across the office. He treaded lightly across deep red carpet, scanning the area for anything useful and coming up empty. In the back of the room was a messy Cherrywood desk, and to their right there was a lit fire in the fireplace, yet no signs of the person with which they needed to speak were present.

Mother—a codename. They knew little about her other than the fact she had a reputation for being a beautiful, if minatory, woman who regularly dealt arms to area rebels. Past that, nothing.

They had come to her for monetary reasons.

Jack, head of his own thriving company and none too thrilled with his recent drop in profits, suspected her of foul play; Rhys, unfortunate tagalong and sidekick/boyfriend, was here to keep Jack from stirring up too much trouble. He was brand new to Hyperion, and Jack had selected him out of many new recruits purely because he liked the look of him: haughty, handsome, and confident. Reminded him of himself, just a little.

Rhys, for his part, had done remarkably well in his time at the company, both in business and in more _personal_ tasks. Still, being a newbie had its downfalls. For instance, he had apparently never in his life seen a man die in front of him before today. If he was going to be Jack’s assistant, he was definitely going to have to get used to that.

“There’s nobody here,” Rhys said, looking imploringly at Jack with those doe eyes that he’d come to…really like.

Jack had to shake himself. “She can’t just be _gone_ ,” he grumbled, smacking a palm down on a pile of loose paper atop the woman’s desk and swiping them off in heated anger. They billowed around Rhys’s head and settled onto the floor, and once they had he aimed an unamused look at Jack.

“Well, unless she’s invisible…” he began, stopping himself when Jack glared. He figured he’d gotten his point across, anyway. Serious now, he circled her desk with curiosity until he found a drawer containing her laptop. “Bingo!” He flashed the other man a smile so sweet that Jack had to smile back.

“Good work, cupcake,” he said, lowering the barrel of his gun against the carpet by his feet. “See if you can find any files.”

Before they could get anywhere useful, a woman’s voice arose from behind them. “Handsome Jack,” she purred. It was a hauntingly beautiful voice: low and rich and musical. Rhys spun on his heel, pistol raised, while Jack stayed still, standing straight and staring expressionlessly into the crackling fire. “I can honestly say I thought you’d deserted this place for good,” Mother continued, stepping into the office with a lithe, graceful kind of poise that Rhys had only ever seen in the movies. He lowered his gun and tried not to look too taken aback.

“I thought I killed you,” Jack said, pushing his shotgun flat onto the floor. Rhys regarded him with an expression of panic.

“You _know_ her?” he asked incredulously. “You didn’t even look at her!”

“Dark skin, black hair?” Jack asked flatly, looking at Rhys with a sneer. “Looks like a huge bitch?”

“That isn’t very nice, _honey_.” Mother looked over her shoulder at the now empty hallway behind her, then at Jack again. “Why are you here? Better yet: Why shouldn’t I shoot you where you stand?”

Jack, at length, turned to face her. “Nisha, Nisha, Nisha,” he cooed, opening his arms and smiling conspiratorially. “No hard feelings between us, right?”

“Right,” Mother—Nisha—said without feeling. “Answer my question.”

“We’re here because of a teeny, tiny little problem,” Jack answered, lifting himself onto her desk and crossing his legs at the ankle. He placed his folded hands in his lap.

Rhys, who stood to his left, just kept looking between them with a great deal of suspicion.

“Oh, the sudden drop in Hyperion income?” Nisha asked, crossing her arms and cocking her hip. “I’m flattered you think I would do something to spite you, but it’s just good old-fashioned business.”

“Bullshit,” Jack growled. “You’re doing something. You have a rat in Hyperion, don’t you?”

“Oh, baby,” she said, matching his earlier tone of false affection, “that’s all Hyperion is, is rats.”

“Hey!” Rhys objected, narrowing his eyes at her.

“Who’s the pretty-boy?” Nisha asked Jack, ignoring Rhys completely as though he were simply standing there to be Jack’s personal, purebred show dog.

Jack’s expression grew dark. “My assistant,” he said, rising to his feet again. “Forget about him. I want to know the identity of the _spy_ you dropped on me.”

Nisha took her dark glasses off and looked at Rhys with beautiful, pitying eyes. “Oh, _no_ ,” she said, “you poor thing. He’s fucking you, huh?”

Rhys scoffed, offended. “Excuse me?”

“He’s an assistant,” Jack repeated, angrier this time. “Look at me, you bitch.”

Nisha approached Rhys and clicked her tongue like a doting mother. Gingerly, she set her hands on either side of his face, watching as he flinched back the slightest bit. “Do you know who I am, sweetheart?” she asked.

“Rhys, leave,” Jack demanded. “I think I ought to take care of this one on my own.”

Ignoring him, Nisha leaned in until her lips grazed the shell of Rhys’s ear. “I’m his wife,” she said softly, before pulling away to smile. When she smiled, it was poisonous, with a heavy dose of false, saccharine sweetness that made Rhys’s head spin for a moment.

“I—excuse me?” he asked before looking at Jack, who was facing away, scowling at the floor-to-ceiling bookcase at the other side of the room.

“Ex,” he said, with less vitriol than he’d probably intended. “Or at least she was after I _killed_ her.”

“Right!” Nisha said with a bark of a laugh. “Guess the paperwork was just a little too hard, huh? Might as well not bother with any of that.” She flapped a hand dismissively and looked back at Rhys. “What’s your name, kid?”

Rhys’s lip curled into a snarl, which he hoped made him look tougher than he felt. “Rhys,” he answered, lifting his chin up a fraction of an inch.

Nisha hummed and nodded, as if taking this to heart. “Well, Rhys,” she said after a long moment, “if I know anything about Jack…”

“Shut up,” Jack said, whipping his head around to look at her. “This is between you and me. Leave him out of it.”

“It’s that he’ll eat you up,” Nisha went on, frowning at Rhys like he was a tragedy to look at. “He’ll fuck you ‘til you fall in love, and then leave you for the birds.” Then, with a slow, ironic smile, she added, “If you’re lucky.”

“Nisha!” Jack snapped. “Tell me who the spy is.”

“There is no spy, _Jack_ ,” Nisha said, matching his tone, her voice growing loud. “It’s your inflated ego thinking that you can do no wrong—that’s what’s wrong with Hyperion profit. It’s just you and your dickhole personality.” She wheeled around to face him and jammed a finger into his chest. “So how about this, huh? You’re going to leave this office, go back home, and get your cock sucked by your newest plaything, then you’re going to leave me alone for good.” To drive her point home, she spat into Jack’s face, then stomped past him toward the door. “You have two minutes before I call security,” she said, as a finality. After that, she was gone.

Jack cursed under his breath. “Come on, Rhys,” he said, scooping his gun off the floor and taking a step toward the exit, only to have Rhys cross the blank space to grab him by the arm and hold him back. “What the— Kid, come on, we gotta get out of here.”

“You tried to kill her,” Rhys said accusingly. “How do I know you’re not going to turn your back on me, too? Are you going to try and kill _me_?”

“You’re an idiot for listening to her,” Jack spat, jerking his arm away. “Now, let’s go before security comes and swarms us.”

“Oh, so I’m an idiot now.” Rhys shoved his pistol into his pocket and lifted his hands up, palms outward, fingers splayed. “Or was I always an idiot to you? Just a pretty face? Just a—”

“Rhys.” Jack’s voice was threatening. “We do not have the time to be doing this right now.”

“I knew it was too good to be true,” Rhys muttered, licking his lips and looking up at the ceiling in exasperation. He shook his head. “God, when you picked me out of the hundred other shmucks in that lineup, I should have thought… I shouldn’t have been as excited as I was. My mistake, I guess.”

“Rhys,” Jack repeated.

“Maybe I should’ve known it when you took a man’s life just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Whatever sympathy for the situation Jack had before this point flew out the window. “Ah _hhh_ , I get it. I’m the bad guy that kills to get what he wants. I just dragged you here to show you that I’m nothing but the boogey man, huh? Just a murdering psychopath with no regard for human life. Is that it?”

“Apparently,” Rhys answered without missing a beat. He couldn’t look him in the eye, and this made Jack’s chest ache.

“Here’s the thing, _babe_ ,” Jack started, putting a hand on the doorknob, “everybody’s red on the inside. We’re all poor suckers trying to make a living, and some of us are gonna die doing it. We come into this business perfectly aware of that. I thought you were, too.”

Rhys seemed to be tongue-tied for a second, but a second was long enough.

“And you know what?” Jack said, having thought of something better to add. “I brought you here because I thought you were ready to be my partner. Permanently. As in, the Head Honcho. The right-hand-man. The co-owner of Hyperion.”

“Co-owner?” Rhys asked, surprised. “I’ve only been here for a few months.”

“Yeah, but I liked ya, kid.” Jack let his frown reach his eyes before he could think better of the implications. “Liked you a lot, actually. As in, a big fucking diamond ring kind of ‘a lot.’”

Rhys’s lips parted, but no words came out.

“But listen, if you’re going to take her side—”

“Her side?” Rhys repeated, shaking his head. “Jack, I wasn’t—”

“Forget this, all right? We really can talk about it later.” Jack rolled his eyes. “For Christ’s sake, we should’ve been out of here by now.”

“How do I know…” Rhys began, floundering all of the sudden. “I don’t know, how am I supposed to know I’m not just another… _her?_ ”

Jack pursed his lips and looked down at the ground to gather his thoughts. When he looked up again, his eyes were mirthless. “You’re nothing like her. That’s why…” He exhaled with a peculiar sort of intensity. “That’s half the goddamn reason I liked you in the first place. That you were actually, I don’t know, a decent guy?”

“Not just a pretty face?” Rhys asked, rubbing the back of his neck.

Jack smiled before he thought better of it. “The pretty face was a bonus.”

When Rhys laughed, it made the blast that came from behind him pale in comparison. Rhys smiled with his teeth, and it was such a goddamn beautiful smile that Jack hardly noticed when the blast became a ringing in his ears, or when the pinch in his chest began blossoming into a burning, pooling sting.

He blinked. When he opened his eyes again, he found that he had dropped to his knees, and Rhys was no longer smiling but yelling something at him, hands on his shoulders, gripping tightly.

Something clicked.

“I told you,” Jack said with a weak snort of a laugh. He placed a hand over the bullet wound beneath his ribs and regarded the blood with a tired fascination, as though it were all happening in a dream. “Red, see?” He wiggled his fingers in front of Rhys’s face and smiled. “As human as anybody else.”

He couldn’t hear anything but ringing, but he could tell from Rhys’s grief-stricken face that he was saying his name, over and over, without sound. “Jack. Jack! _Jack_.”

“Listen, Rhysie, baby,” he said, grabbing the other man’s face in his hands and dragging him into a kiss. It tasted salty, and it took Jack a moment to register that it was because Rhys was crying. When he pulled away, the other’s face had streaks of blood wiped on either side, running from his cheekbones down his jaw, from where Jack’s hands had been seconds prior. “Listen,” he repeated, “I think I deserve this.”

Rhys’s lips formed the word “no,” but everything after that was a mash of sound that Jack couldn’t hear. Everything sounded like a blender crushing ice. It took him a second to realize it was because guns were still firing. In fact, there were other people in the room with them now, prying Rhys off him, kicking and screaming, with guns aimed at both of them.

“Leave him alone,” he mumbled, half-intelligible. “He didn’t do anything.”

The people were a blurry, swarming mass now. Or perhaps that was because Jack was beginning to lose vision. “Don’t hurt the prettyboy,” he said with a smirk. “Jack’s orders.”

When he closed his eyes this time, it felt like he was falling into a deep sleep.

//

When Jack woke up, he was someplace he didn’t recognize. This, he decided, was pretty weird for him, since he hadn’t been drinking the night before.

The last thing he remembered was typing up documents in his office before retreating to bed with his boyfriend, whom he had broken the good news to earlier that day that he’d be coming along with Jack on a mission. Rhys’s first, in fact, since joining Hyperion about a month ago. This mission was to see business mogul Mother down on Pandora and confront her about a suspicious change in Hyperion profit numbers, but, truthfully, Jack wanted to do more than just _talk_ , which might have been the word he’d used when he described it to Rhys. What he _wanted_ was to kick her sorry ass, but he knew that this may not be the best way to settle things with a newbie in his presence. Or maybe he had a soft spot for this one, not that he’d say so.

His confusion was abated at least slightly when he turned around to see just the man he’d been thinking of. Relief like that meant a lot in a line of work as stressful as Jack’s.

“Ayy, kid,” he started fondly. His first clue that something was wrong was that, when he reached out to touch him, Rhys flinched violently back and regarded him with wide eyes. “What…” he snorted and put his hands on his hips. “What’s up? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Rhys let out a breathless “oh” sound and put his face in his hands for a second. Then, carefully, he peeked out between his fingers and threw his hands up when he made eye contact with Jack again. “Oh, god,” he said, sounding agonized. “I’m going crazy.”

“Babe,” Jack said, serious now. “What the hell is your problem?”

“That you’re standing right there!” Rhys cried, grabbing a fistful of his own hair with his organic hand. “You’re supposed to be…” He paused and licked his lips, looking frantically to and fro as if something around him was going to solve his sudden predicament.

“Listen, if I was s’posed to be doing something else…” Jack chuckled and shook his head. “I don’t even remember how the hell I got here, so fuck if I know what I oughta be doing right now.”

Someone called Rhys’s name from somewhere behind him. Jack saw that someone before Rhys did, but even when the stranger approached him and put a hand on Rhys’s shoulder, the latter did not turn to look at him.

“Rhys?” the man tried again. He looked worried. “Are you all right, man?”

“I, uh,” Rhys finally looked at him. “Sorry, Vaughn, I just…felt a little off for a second.”

“Well you _sound_ like you’re gonna be sick,” Vaughn told him, putting his hands on either side of Rhys’s face in a way that didn’t sit well with Jack.

“He’s fine,” he said, narrowing his eyes and taking a step closer. “Why don’t you buzz off for a second and leave us alone, all right?”

Vaughn ignored him and slid one hand up to feel Rhys’s forehead. “You don’t have a fever,” he said with a frown.

“I’m fine,” Rhys said, forcing a smile that neither Jack nor Vaughn found very convincing.

“If you need me, let me know,” Vaughn told him with a sweet smile.

It seemed like one moment everything was fine, but the next thing Jack knew, this guy was _kissing_ his boyfriend. On the mouth and everything, like he had any sort of right.

“Hey!” he snapped, reaching out for him and not making contact. It was as if his hand went right through him, like he wasn’t even there. Concerned, he tried again, swiping aimlessly at…nothing. Each time he tried to grab him, his hand came back empty. Vaughn seemed unbothered, and walked off without even acknowledging his presence.

Rhys looked at him like he’d just watched a puppy get skinned.

“Yeah, you’d better look sorry,” Jack said accusingly. “What the hell was that? Who is that guy, eh? Your side piece?” He snorted. “Because, I mean, come _on_. Look at what you’ve got right in front of you. I’m just sayin’, you could do better than _him._ ”

“Jack,” was all Rhys said for a moment. Then, after taking a breath, he said, “How are you doing this? Are you, like, broadcasting from somewhere or something?”

“Broadcasting from right in front of ya,” Jack replied. “Did you hit your head or something?”

When Rhys spoke next, Jack thought he might be going crazy. “Jack,” he said, “it’s been _months_ since you died.”

He blinked once. Twice. “Excuse me?” One humorless laugh later, he realized that Rhys’s expression was serious. He wasn’t kidding. “Okay, woah, back up. You’re telling me that _I_ am dead? _Me?_ ”

Rhys nodded mutely.

Jack began to pace back and forth, rubbing with both hands at the back of his neck. Past a string of heated curses, he managed to think of a proper response. “Why can _you_ see me, huh? Your little—that little punk over there couldn’t.”

Slowly, Rhys touched the port on the side of his head. “The flash drive I downloaded,” he muttered to himself, furrowing his brows. “It must have had…” Despite Jack’s questioning look, Rhys did not continue.

“So, what?” Jack monotoned. “I’m in your head, is what you’re telling me?”

“Like a virus,” Rhys agreed.

“Ouch, cupcake.”

Rhys closed his eyes for a second. His hand still hovered over the port, unmoving. “Don’t… Listen, it looks like you’re going to be tagging along for a while, so…”

Jack did not like where this was going.

“You have to stop calling me that,” Rhys said, flinching at his own words. “You’re not… _we’re_ not what we were before, all right?” No amount of natural charm could stop Jack from noticing that Rhys was trying hard not to make eye contact. “Vaughn and I…”

“I’m gonna stop you right there,” Jack said, eyes dark, “and let you rethink what you’re about to tell me.”

Rhys pursed his lips. “You’re dead, Jack. He was there for me and…” He threw his hands up, exasperated. “I don’t know what you want me to say when you just appeared back in my life like _this_ , when I was finally starting to feel like a whole person again—”

“I’m back,” Jack interrupted, “I’m standing right in front of ya, kid.”

“But you’re _not_.” Rhys swatted at him in frustration, watching his hand go straight through Jack’s head over and over again. “Look, I can’t even touch you. You’re a hologram.”

“So I’m just supposed to tag along and watch you and Eyeglasses make out all the time? Nuh-uh, count me out.” Jack crossed his arms and turned away from him.

Rhys took a step toward him and said, suddenly solemn, “You don’t really have a choice.” Then, slowly, “But bear with me…I can get you back to Hyperion. I can—I don’t know—put you back in the computer system or something. Things could go back to normal.”

“Right,” Jack said with a scowl. “Normal.”

“I’m sorry,” Rhys said, sounding so genuine it hurt Jack to think about it.

The next thing Jack heard was the other man’s footsteps retreating from him, and the further away he got, the less of his own hands he was able to see right in front of him. So they really were stuck with each other. The devil must be laughing at him, somewhere.

Jack watched his digitalized form wither away piece by piece. “Guess I deserved this, too,” he mumbled, before disappearing completely and taking with him a completely new dying breath.

“You didn’t,” Rhys said into thin air. He looked over the railing at Fiona, Sasha, and Vaughn, each of them deliberating over the fallen halves of the treasure they’d found.

“Rhys!” Vaughn waved him over. “This thing must be imprinted on you, somehow. It won’t let anyone else but you and Fiona touch it.”

Fiona held her half up in front of her face and examined it carefully. “What _is_ it, anyway?”

Rhys heard a crackling sound seconds before the air between he and Fiona grew colder.

“That,” Jack said with an air of finality, “is the Gortys Project.”


End file.
